I came across this old Motor Trend comparsion with BMW vs Olds. See what happens.

WARNING!: Black and white :o

http://home.comcast.net/~coreysciuto/bin/trofeobmw.pdf

Trofeo kicks ass. Period. Plus, it doesn't look cheap. Give me the Olds. Digital cluster, big car handling, touch screen and all.

That was a good artical, I felt they were fair and was surprised. I will point out that where the Trofeo fell short in acceleration performance there is more than the weight difference, which they did mention. The BMW had 4.10:1 final drives :blink: - this is near what guys put in American cars for drag racing. The Trofeo has 2.97:1 which is more closely related to pararie gears. If the Trofeo would have had 4.10:1 ratio it would have spanked the BMW raw. The difference in RPM's at speed will illustrate, I forgot to make note of speed but where the BMW would be turning 2600 the Trofeo would be idling along at 1550 so there goes the "fast reving" bull ! The Olds also benefited by this ratio in the gas milage department, which would have been down to BMWs with a lower gear ratio. 18/22 for BMW 18/27 for Trofeo Ive appreaciate your posting this artical. I have been wondering where some GM's fell in those days against what competition. It seems it still usually boils down to perception and they did a good job of driving that point home.

Another past favorite of mine from Olds... :D

I appreciate you posting that article a LOT! It would have been interesting to see the numbers for the Toro in '91 with the engine refinement (and 5 more Hp!) The gas milage jumps out at me too!! Even with 150K on the clock I was able to better than 30 MPG driving to Texas for the National Meet back in 2000 (or was it 2001?) and that was at 70MPH I loved that car... :)

nice story. i would take the last year model trofeo anyday. do a few mods to get the horseys up and tighten it up a bit. thanks for the memories.

Thanks for posting this artical, very interesting results to say the least. I'll take a Trofeo any day of the week over the Bimmer